In Valenzuela v. Newsome, 253 Ga.793, 796, 325 S.E.2d 370 (1985), the Georgia Supreme Court decided not to define "miscarriage of justice." Instead, the Supreme Court stated that a miscarriage of justice should be determined on a case-by-case basis, "and will depend largely upon the sound discretion of the trial judge." Id. "Hence, on rare occasion, the writ must pass over procedural bars and the requirements of cause and prejudice, when that shall be necessary to avoid a miscarriage of justice." Id. The fact that Genarlow Wilson has spent two years in prison for what is now classified as a misdemeanor, and without assistance from this Court, will spend eight more years in prison, is a grave miscarriage of justice. If any case fits into the definitive limits of a miscarriage of justice, surely this case does.
If this Court, or any Court, cannot recognize the injustice of what has occurred here, then our court system has lost sight of the goal our judicial system has always strived to accomplish...Justice being served in a fair and equal manner.
It sounds like a case of an exercise of the virtue of equity, or epieikeia (Aquinas always spells it epikeia):
As stated above (I-II, 96, 6), when we were treating of laws, since human actions, with which laws are concerned, are composed of contingent singulars and are innumerable in their diversity, it was not possible to lay down rules of law that would apply to every single case. Legislators in framing laws attend to what commonly happens: although if the law be applied to certain cases it will frustrate the equality of justice and be injurious to the common good, which the law has in view. Thus the law requires deposits to be restored, because in the majority of cases this is just. Yet it happens sometimes to be injurious--for instance, if a madman were to put his sword in deposit, and demand its delivery while in a state of madness, or if a man were to seek the return of his deposit in order to fight against his country. On these and like cases it is bad to follow the law, and it is good to set aside the letter of the law and to follow the dictates of justice and the common good. This is the object of "epikeia" which we call equity. Therefore it is evident that "epikeia" is a virtue.
As he goes on to note in response to an objection, by setting aside the letter of law and regulation for particular cases, the virtue of equity does not involve setting aside what is just, but setting aside a strict interpretation of the rules in order to preserve what is just. The virtue of equity or epieikeia governs the application of legal justice or, in other words, the observance of the law, by allowing a less strict regard to law in a given case. This, of course, depends heavily on the particular contingent circumstances of the case at hand.
